The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2017 47 came from reaching my goal of being an ambassador, however, has given me the space to feel like I don’t always have to know the answer. I have brilliant staff to help me get it right. LB: Can you share a formative experience (professional or otherwise) that helped shape your leadership vision and/or style? Amb. Erica Barks-Ruggles: When I was a teenager, I was a newspaper carrier, and the district manager passed me over for a more junior (male) carrier for an important regional job that would have given me a pay raise. My parents supported my protest to the top management of the newspaper. I demanded fair treatment and the raise I would have gotten had I not been discriminated against (the district manager admitted that the only reason I did not get the job was because I was a “girl”). I got the raise. That taught me to demand equal treatment, not to settle for being passed over, and to always raise your hand and ask for the promotion/better job/tougher assignment. Nobody was going to give it to me just because I deserved it. Amb. Jennifer Zimdahl Galt: Serving as principal officer in Guangzhou, overseeing a consulate general that more than doubled in size during my tenure. Because I did not have a deputy and the bureau didn’t support the creation of one, I was chief cook and bottle washer. Leading a team of more than 500, including 65 first- and second-tour officers, taught me more about management, security and personnel than I had learned in the first 25 years of my career. I loved every minute of it and would do it again in a heartbeat. Ambassador Nina Hachigian Nina Hachi- gian, a political appointee, was sworn in as the second resident U.S. ambassador to the Associa- tion of Southeast Asian Nations in September 2014 and served through January 2017. During her tenure, the United States and ASEAN became strategic part- ners. Previously, Amb. Hachigian was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and served as director of the RAND Center for Asia Pacific Policy. From 1998 to 1999, she was on the staff of the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton. She is the edi- tor of Debating China: The U.S. - China Relationship in Ten Conversations and co-author of The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise . Amb. Hachigian holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a law degree from Stanford University. She is married with two children. Her advice for younger women: Take a risk! Ambassador Gina Abercrombie- Winstanley Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley served as U.S. ambassador to Malta from 2012 to 2016. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Amb. Abercrombie-Winstanley previ- ously served as principal officer in Jeddah. She has also served overseas in Iraq, Israel, Egypt and Indonesia. In Washington, D.C., she served as foreign policy adviser at U.S. Cyber Command, deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism and at the National Security Council. She holds a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Amb. Abercrombie- Winstanley is married and has a son and a daughter. Her mantra: I wish I’d known I pretty much knew as much as my colleagues and to voice my ideas more. While serving as U.S. ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Nina Hachigian visited all 10 ASEAN countries, and took this selfie along the way.